The present invention relates to systems and devices that translate or convert computer files from one format to another. More particularly, the invention relates to systems and devices that convert form and document files from existing formats to xHTML and other tagged or embedded code formats that permit documents to function like database records.
In financial and other industries there are numerous systems used to generate forms and similar documents. For example, within the mortgage lending industry there are a number of loan origination systems, both open-standard and proprietary, that are used to produce different types of documents. For example, VMP Mortgage Forms software is used by a large number of lending institutions for home mortgage and similar transactions. Companies like VMP Mortgage Forms produce mortgage forms for the majority of state and other jurisdictions in the United States. Each jurisdiction may have different legal requirements related to the buying and selling of real estate and the associated loaning of funds to customers. Lending institutions find it more cost effective to use the forms generated by a form company, rather than use their own attorneys to ensure that the documents they use in mortgage transactions comply with the legal requirements of the many jurisdictions in which the lending institutions conduct business.
Most commonly, mortgage and other lending transactions are conducted using paper forms. These forms are printed using loan origination and other financial computer systems. The development of the Internet has led to increased interest in and execution of transactions using electronic forms. In theory, Internet and other available technologies allow financial transactions to be completed without the need to generate any paper documents. However, such ideal systems have not yet been developed.
One problem with current technology is that financial systems produce scores of different types of document file format outputs. Common file formats include .uff, .plc, .rtf, and .pdf. As is known, a file format is the internal structure of a file that defines the way in which the file is stored within a computer system or memory. In addition, a file format may include various control instructions used by application programs and hardware devices.